Inkheart

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Summary

Mo has the special talent to bring characters out of books. One night he brings out three characters from Inkheart, a story set in medieval times and filled with magical beings. Capricorn and Basta, two villains, and Dustfinger, a fire-eater. Now, 10 years later Meggie discovers the truth and it's up to her to escape Capricorn's evil grasp.

Movie Reviews

Pale and Thin

Cornelia Funke, German novelist and childrens book writer, supposedly had Brendan Fraser in mind when she wrote this story. OK. Is Brendan Fraser a big star in Germany? I can imagine having John Malkovich or Al Pacino in mind when writing a book - but Fraser? Hmm..

Funke, who wrote The Thief Lord and Die Wilden Huhner, based this story on a simple idea: characters come to life from books when read by a specific someone. After about an hour into the film I totally lost the plot. Such a simple idea, and being unable to tell a good story around it makes it remarkably pale and thin. I didn't understand and didn't care for all the characters that were 'read' out of the book, some were happy, others wanted to go back into the book. First there was only one person who could bring characters to life, then all of a sudden there were three.

Then there was the writer of the book (who didn't have one copy of it) - then there was an evil creature. And what was the old woman's purpose on the motorbike?

Eliza Bennet, who is cute, doesn't fit the role of a beautiful princess (as a tomboy like she played in the Contractor she shined) seems to be equipped with only one (1!) facial expression. A cryface. Even when she smiled she couldn't hide it.

Javier Navarrete, usually a very solid composer, created one of the most bland and unidentifiable scores of his career. Knitted together some little tatters to a grey mass of boring sostenuto.

Nope. Overall, this is not a great movie and could have been so much better. You may avoid. [~ALIPTES]